A few years ago I once saw Suicide Silence the headlining act of tonight’s bill absolutely decimate the Soundwave Festival stage. This was a band on a mission, returning from brink after the unfortunate death of Mitch Lucker, they powered on with more than capable frontman Eddie Hermida and from the opening notes it was blatantly obvious to those all involved that the band still had plenty more gas in the tank. So where are they two years on from that absolutely show stopping performance? Well, before I can answer that, I need to tell you about Graves.

Graves are a band who swam in from the sea of Wolloongong to be here tonight. So it’s thankful I can report they were indeed worth the price of admission, at least in the sense that they provide an ample opportunity for whichever person decided they were going to down several jack and cokes before throwing down in the pit to their brand of hardcore. Their set featured the usual ninja fighting shenanigans that one has come to appreciate from the Brisbane scene with vocalist Rhys adding fuel to the alcohol fuelled chaos. The band leaving everyone sufficiently warmed for the next act Boris the Blade.

There’s many words I would use to describe Boris the Blade, unfortunately most of them aren’t really that nice. Coming from Melbourne, these guys are the definition of binary-core, the cascading ones and zeroes are enough to keep even the most ardent fan of hardcore happy but it’s clear there is a distinct lack of any originality in any of the songs. It’s just the same old you’ve heard from any other band in the last decade, so much so when they introduce a new song, you could forgive me for just thinking it was an extension of the last song. Calling them boring would probably be enough if it wasn’t for the metalcore 101 frontman tactics which only add to the general sense of fatigue they exude. But hey, the kids loved it, right?

Thankfully, Suicide Silence is here to save the night. Kicking things off with a knife to the jugular they unleash fan-favourites ‘Unanswered’ and ‘No Pity for a Coward’ onto the crowd who respond by giving them the first of many sing-along moments and the pit descends into chaos. Eddie Hermida in particular is on fire tonight as he trumps about the stage with a foreboding sense of menace, with his vocals slicing through the dissonance like a surgical knife cutting into flesh. From there it’s slab after slab of pure heavy fucking metal as the band reign hellfire upon the punters with endless hits from their vast and underappreciated back catalogue.

But the biggest moments come from their last two albums, ‘Fuck Everything’ sees the crowd defiantly raise their middle fingers to the sky, while ‘Cease to Exist’ threatens to cause even the tamest person in the room to drag their body through broken glass. The ultimate highlight would be ‘Slaves to Substance’ as the song shakes the very foundation and threatens to swallow the world in two.

Coming back onstage for an encore, there’s very little left to do at this point, playing the opening riff to the seminal Korn song ‘Blind’ they segue straight into ‘Bludgeoned to Death’ before ending it all with the only song left to play. ‘You Only Live Once’ causing everything to be turned up a notch as the crowd and band lay waste to everything and even causing this reviewer to forgo his own “no moshing” policy as the place goes absolutely fucking mental. Suicide Silence have proved once and for all that you can’t fucking stop me.